Very rarely, it seems to me, do we stumble upon books that are precise, extremely useful, and timely. This distinctive publication is one of its kind from the authors: William Scott and Paul Vare. The book has an unexpected number of 56 chapters, which may sound strange initially. However, the authors have made clear in the introduction chapter regarding the content that they intended for the readers that ‘neither is it a toolkit, self-help book … We set out to summarize ideas in a way that will help you join in the public and political debate and help you to think about the state of the world that we shall all leave behind’ (p. 2).

The authors are selective and comprehensive about the content of each chapter. As the title of the book clearly portrays, the action that all of us need to do is to ‘grasp the sustainability challenge’. In Part 1, the authors list the environmental issues, followed in Part 2 by explanations of the concepts pertaining to the issues, and finally, Part 3 lists strategies to provoke our minds.

In Part 1, the authors list 20 environmental issues such as global warming and climate change, gender disparity, economic inequality, natural resource depletion, and so on. Each issue is detailed as an individual chapter. While most of these chapters are themed on familiar topics, Chapter 13 is titled ‘Elephants, Rhino and Donkeys’, and it is about the decline in the populations of elephants and rhinoceroses. Globally, attempts are made to protect these animals by organisations such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature, World Wide Fund for Nature and many more. But why are donkeys connected with elephants and rhinoceroses? The authors portray the horrific story of donkeys exported to China from African countries for various reasons. Similarly, the authors bring out the bleak reality of other issues, such as the increased consumption of meat, migration of humans, and many more in the rest of the chapters. Finally, Chapter 20 concludes with the concept of biocentrism, which is ‘the ethical perspective which says that all life has equal moral standing’ (p. 87). However, there is another version of biocentrism propounded by Robert Lanza that places biology above other scientific disciplines (Lanza & Berman, Reference Lanza and Berman2010). This book focuses on the former concept, which is related more to environmental ethics.

In Part 2, 18 chapters are connected to each other ideologically, so as to maintain the flow. This reflects the professionalism of authors. For instance, Chapter 23 details James Lovelock’s concept of the Gaia hypothesis, based on Greek mythology of the Earth Goddess, which assumes that the whole earth is a living entity. In the conclusion, it is stated that the living Gaia may not eternally tolerate the brutality of a single species — Homo sapiens. This chapter is followed by a chapter on biodiversity, followed by Chapter 25, on the need to conserve the biodiversity. Other interesting topics covered in Part 2 are the greenhouse effect, sustainable development, harmony, resilience and globalisation.

For tackling any issue, we need to understand it, contemplate, discuss and develop strategies to overcome it. Similarly, after enlightening about the problem, the authors chart out the third part of the book — ‘Strategies’ — with 17 chapters. Apart from the usual concepts such as carbon capture and storage (Chapter 44), energy policy (Chapter 43), environmental education (Chapter 54), there are a few chapters that are quite spectacular, like Chapter 40 — ‘The Copenhagen Consensus’. It speaks of a neoliberal market-based method for achieving the sustainable development goals, especially the Sustainable Development Goal 12 — the need to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, which encompasses the idea of food security. This becomes the topic for the next chapter — ‘Feeding 10 Million’ (Chapter 41). Chapter 52 is worth highlighting here; it is about the concept of the reintroduction of a species into its own natural niche area. Conservationists are widely supporting the idea of species introduction in areas where they were previously existing naturally. Yet, this idea may not be suitable for all species. In this chapter, the authors specifically take up the example of the reintroduction of otters and explain the intricacies.

The authors provide a few selected references at the end of each chapter. The well-structured index at the end of the book comes to the rescue of readers for looking up certain concepts. This sort of book marks the transition from a conventional book; focusing more on the themes and using relevant statistics but avoiding extensive literature citations that helps make it readable for the general audience.